]]>This is the ‘Pipebomb’ podcast Episode FOUR from Hardware BBQ! Today we only talk about Nvidia and Intel because they’re using the same old bait-and-trap promotion to lure people in for pre-order while stifling honest, balanced, multi-workload benchmarking, independent review websites. Bullshit called out on Intel using manipulative paid third party for using game mode on R7 2700X, therefore making a performance difference against Core i9-9900K look like up to 50%. PT had to retest with all cores enabled on the R7 2700X, showing a much smaller performance gap.

Intel initially said Principled Technologies report is fine. Then comes and pretends it didn’t know about it, and thanks them for the correction. PUH-LEEZ!!!!

Meanwhile the only Indian PC “media” pissed on the opportunity to catch them red-handed pissed of with a re-worded press release. Can’t do your job right? Do something else, will ya?

Intro and Outro Music Credit: Dandy’s Little Monsters by The Zombie Dandies. Sound effects via AR SOUND EFFECTS and are with no copyright claims. Dandy’s Little Monsters by The Zombie Dandies is licensed under an Attribution License.

]]>https://www.hardwarebbq.com/bbq-pipebomb-ep05-amazon-advertising-fake-nvidia-gpus-intels-deceptive-benchmark-practices/feed/040471Principled Technologies publishes re-corrected Intel commissioned reporthttps://www.hardwarebbq.com/principled-technologies-publishes-re-corrected-intel-commissioned-report/
https://www.hardwarebbq.com/principled-technologies-publishes-re-corrected-intel-commissioned-report/#respondSat, 13 Oct 2018 09:33:50 +0000https://www.hardwarebbq.com/?p=40423The rocky tale of the Core i9! The announcement of the Core i9-9900K sure did raise every tech journalist and reviewer’s eyebrows, except the one who flew from India for the l(a)unch. When the original report from Principled Technologies came out, many inconsistencies were found. Naturally, it made the Intel Core i9-9900K look like the ...

The announcement of the Core i9-9900K sure did raise every tech journalist and reviewer’s eyebrows, except the one who flew from India for the l(a)unch. When the original report from Principled Technologies came out, many inconsistencies were found. Naturally, it made the Intel Core i9-9900K look like the next best thing with a difference of up to 50% against Ryzen 7 2700X. This is even more serious as Intel stifled reviewers with an embargo while having this report out in the open and have its pre-order options available. Obviously, Intel was banking on using this report as a way to justify its pricing. It was trying to pull an RTX 20 series on the CPU for all of us!

But thanks to the number of details in settings and benchmarks, we were able to catch multiple discrepancies. Whether Principled Technologies’ original attempts were intentional or not was debatable until its first response. They did acknowledge some feedback and promised to provide the revised version.

Is #GameModeGate a thing?

AMD Ryzen Master utility’s Game Mode was one of the settings that low-blowed Ryzen 7 2700X since it was essentially made for Threadripper platform to half its core/thread count for optimal gaming performance. But it was used on the mainstream AMD Ryzen 2 2700X making the 8-core-16 thread CPU into a quad-core-8 thread processor. In all these game benchmarks, the comparative results looked awfully strange for an R7 2700X. Hence what started the flow of reporting and investigation.

Ideally, AMD should have disabled Game Mode on mainstream Ryzen processors since its not intended for these processors. Not really a big deal but…it can if it wants to.

PT’s Statement

After releasing the second revision of the port with the corrected AMD Ryzen 2nd generation and Threadripper benchmarks, the official statement says the following:

As you may well imagine, the last few days have been busy. I (and others at PT) have spent long hours finishing the supplemental tests, trying to keep up with the community’s feedback, and responding to some of them. We would like to have responded as quickly as everyone requested, but there are way more of you than there are of us.

Intel requested that we test several CPUs to compare game performance. We tested various generations of Intel and AMD processors as listed in our original report. Based on community feedback, we have done additional testing.

Specific to AMD CPUs, we started the testing on Game Mode for AMD Ryzen Threadripper processors. Those results did indeed show Game Mode overall yielded the best gaming performance on Threadripper. For consistency, we then used Game Mode on all of the AMD processors. We have now added results from our testing of the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X in its default mode (i.e., Creator mode) as well. That mode overall yielded the best gaming performance on the 2700X. We apologize for not testing both modes in the initial report.

The updated report includes both modes. You can find the report and testing results here.

Finally, I’ve left our earlier response below so you can find it easily.

Thanks for listening.

Bill Catchings, co-founder of Principled Technologies

PT’s 2nd Revision Report- the good, the bad and the ugly

The good corrections are the use of Noctua NH-14S TR4 on the Ryzen Threadripper CPUs. Principled Technologies added the all-core-all-thread Creator’s mode in the Ryzen Master utility. For Ryzen 2nd generation, it stuck with Wraith Prism CPU cooler based on AMD’s confidence in it. PT re-tested the games on AMD platform in Creator’s mode which is the default setting for keeping all the cores and threads enabled.

Here’s hoping Principled Technologies used only one of these on all CPU testing.

Memory Timing

There is a logic behind using 2666MHz for Intel and 2933MHz for AMD as its the maximum supported memory frequency. Memory timings were never mentioned in the original report but it did include in the second revision. There’s also a real-world argument against it. But we know the timings used were the same.

Resolution Restriction

Restricting the benchmarks to 1080p-only is debatable but Principled Technologies as a valid point. The main issue here is that Ryzen 7 2700X is terrible at 1080p gaming. That needs to be highlighted because its not a dying resolution- not even close. This choice of resolution cannot be dismissed entirely also for a reason that many users prefer gaming on a 1080p display with 240Hz refresh rate to enjoy the best of performance and best of visuals. The issue however here is that it could have included 1440p since there are people who use 1440p resolution for gaming with similar setups. This way, we could have known both side of the story- performance in this case.

Performance comparison with PT’s analysis

For the sake of simplicity, we took the numbers from Principled Technologies report and compared the Core i9-9900K to Core i7-8700K and Ryzen 7 2700X. We included the Game Mode and Creation Mode benchmark results. Its needed to explain how Intel tried to pull a fast one.

Even with the 1080p handicap performance on the Ryzen platform, the R7 2700X performance is lower than Core i7-8700K. But the performance difference between it and the Core i9-9900K is negligible for PUBG and Fortnite, two of the most popular games for streaming. For Counter-Strike Global Offensive, there is a gap of 68 FPS. This is with the Creator Mode. You won’t have this point of view if you looked only at the game mode’s performance- what Intel originally intended.

The performance difference between the Core i7-8700K and Core i9-9900K for Forza Motorsport 7 and Far Cry 5 is minuscule. While for the GTA-V is the same for both. For Ashes of the Singularity, the performance of the Ryzen 7 2700X is comparable to Core i7-8700K. While the Core i9-9900K gallops by an additional 5.3 FPS only. What about AMD Ryzen 7 2700X performance? We all know it doesn’t really hold well in 1080p gaming. Which is why 1440p would have helped to have a better understanding. This is where the analysis of an independent reviewer comes in.

But this will not be your point of view if you only looked at Game Mode.

Analysis (and change in POV) with Game Mode only

If you look at Game Mode, you can understand what’s the perception PT’s original report and Intel will create. The difference between Core i9-9900K and the game mode 2700X is 11.9%, but with the default Creator mode, its 4.9% below the core i9. Another major difference is Forza Motorsport 7, Far Cry 5, massive difference in Ashes of the Singularity and GTA V.

There are some tests which hardly makes a difference. Such as Core i9-9900K having 49.5% advantage over R7 2700X game mode and 48.4% advantage over R7 2700X Creator mode. There’s always going to be that one exception, but on the most count, the difference between Game mode and Creator mode is night and day.

Intel’s odd behaviour

Why does Intel deviously compare Core i9-9900K with Ryzen 7 2700X? Principle Technologies know the purpose of the Game Mode since they claimed to use it on Threadripper and Ryzen with an excuse to keep the settings uninformed. We appreciate your honesty in your reports but I doubt that was the intention. I am sure you guys knew Game Mode was meant for Threadripper so that most games can run easier on it. I seriously doubt if Intel plays innocent. On its own and within this limited analysis with 1080p gaming, Many would speculate the Core i9-9900K is impressive on its own because it is on a mainstream socket. Sure, it is the fastest on paper on a mainstream platform. It is also the most expensive mainstream processor. But pitching it like the best gaming processor is too over the top. The fastest mainstream CPU might be a realistic claim if it is better in all workloads against AM4+ based CPU. We’ll only know once the benchmarks are out. The definition of ‘best’ in this context changes- if you look at only the processor’s performance- or just the mainstream processor- or for value for money overall.

Intel’s odd-ball of a response

Intel’s response after the Principled Technologies release of a report is too funny and designed to hope they don’t get into trouble and just going with an act:

Given the feedback from the tech community, we are pleased that Principled Technologies ran additional tests. They’ve now published these results along with even more detail on the configurations used and the rationale. The results continue to show that the 9th Gen Intel Core i9-9900K is the world’s best gaming processor. We are thankful for Principled Technologies’ time and transparency throughout this process. We always appreciate feedback from the tech community and are looking forward to comprehensive third party reviews coming out on October 19.”

BULLSHIT! You gave them the parameters to test them on and paid for it. They delivered what you asked them to do but because of the huge backlash PT had to clarify by correcting those mistakes. It was always your intention to use the end results of those tests for downplaying Ryzen 7 2700X’s performance to show a wider gap.

Core i9-9900K VS. Ryzen 7-2700X: A terrible CPU comparison

Therefore the recommendation against pre-ordering is still valid until the reviews from independent review websites are out. The corrected report from Principled Technologies paints a clearer picture for 1080p gaming performance, but that’s it! The eyes and ears are back on Intel.

Intel’s purpose of such practice

With the exception of mentioning Principled Technologies, using standard units of measurements for performance (in this case FPS) and detailed report about its settings, Nvidia pulled off the same stunt for the RTX 20 series. We all know how that ended up. The whole exercise is to convince people to make a pre-order decision based on a single perspective. It conveniently ignored price-per-performance comparison against half-the-cost Mainstream Ryzen 7 2700X CPU. Intel never needed to do that since the Core i9-9900K would have stood on its own with no mainstream CPU comparison from the previous generation or from AMD (for now). If Intel had good intentions, it would have talked about Core i5-9600K and Core i7-9700K and even have PT include its testing.

]]>https://www.hardwarebbq.com/principled-technologies-publishes-re-corrected-intel-commissioned-report/feed/040423Principled Technologies responds to Intel Core i9 and Ryzen benchmark inconsistencieshttps://www.hardwarebbq.com/principled-technologies-responds-to-intel-core-i9-and-ryzen-benchmark-inconsistencies/
https://www.hardwarebbq.com/principled-technologies-responds-to-intel-core-i9-and-ryzen-benchmark-inconsistencies/#respondThu, 11 Oct 2018 03:37:48 +0000https://www.hardwarebbq.com/?p=40366We talked about the Intel 9th generation series and its marketing shenanigans emphasizing only on gaming while ignoring production/editing/non-gaming workloads that use Hyper-Threading, an instruction set that is always enabled on the Core i5 and Core i7. AMD has SMT (Simultaneous Threading) on the Ryzen 5 and Ryzen 7. I hardly looked at the numbers ...

Many did talk about its inconsistencies because few sites simply took the numbers and accepted its face-value. This lead many journalists, reviewers and youtubers question Principled Technologies, the company that made this report for Intel. We also emailed Intel India who did not respond yet. We had equal access to the information because of the livestream which included the promo video with Principled Technologies report link.

Lack of fire within the Indian PC tech media

There is some heartbeat in Intel India’s team since they sent Jamshed Avari from NDTV Gadgets360 to Intel’s event in New York. Its a standard practice like every other journalist around the world. But unlike other journalists, the whole write-up is just another re-worded press release with a few missing stuff. It does not talk about its soldered IHS or referring Intel Z390 chipset’s wireless standard as a part of CNVi, let alone question Principled Technologies report- something that was in front of him. It is because of such lack of research, emphasis and consumer-centric analysis brings a bad name in our line of work. We hope that the passion and tenacity are (re)ignited for the sake of their readers. You do have some spark because atleast you disclosed the travel arrangement for the event is covered by Intel.

Credibility brings reputation and traffic- if that is your driving force (its one of mine!). Sources like Gamers Nexus, Hardware Unboxed, Bitwit, Paul’s Hardware and PCWorld- to name a few- did their jobs. They even collaborated with each other because naturally, it will be the same audience. Here in India, it is just the two of us. Because otherwise others don’t do the right thing. In one corner, one regurgitates information from multiple sources, similarly creating write-ups like yours. Others are worse- simply provide shilling service as a contractor. Since nobody will do the right thing, the two of us have an incredible opportunity to bank on it. You were the last(ish?) editor for CHIP India before it sunk under its own weight. I am sure and hopeful you will agree on it and do your bit. Here at Hardware BBQ, we’re good at re-igniting the passion by pissing people off! I am not trying to do that to you. But what are you doing, really?

Principled Technologies and its response

Game Mode

PT: Use of “Game Mode” on the AMD Ryzen 7 2700X: Some inquiries we have received concern the use of the Ryzen utility and the number of active cores in the AMD-based systems. Based on AMD’s recommendations and our initial testing on the Threadripper processors, we found installing the AMD Ryzen Master utility and enabling the Game Mode increased most results. For consistency purposes, we did that for all AMD systems across Threadripper and Ryzen. We are now doing additional testing with the AMD systems in Creator Mode. We will update the report with the new results.

One of the inconsistencies on the AMD platform was the use of its Game Mode for AMD Ryzen 7 2700X which reduces its 8-core/16-thread core count to 4-core-8-thread. Naturally, this would lead to a handicapped comparison. Principled Technologies claims it wasn’t being dishonest and therefore will update its test results with the Game Mode function disabled.

To Principled Technology’s credit, they did mention enabling Game Mode in its report. A benefit of a doubt can be given to them. They should have been more careful and have that hands-on experience with AMD platform before comparing it with Intel. Intel has paid them to do the report, but its the report and therefore its name that would be used to build the marketing materials.

Memory Speeds and Timings

PT: Memory speeds: To have complete parity across all systems, and to allow the Intel Core i9 X-series and AMD Ryzen Threadripper to fully utilize memory bandwidth, we used 4 16GB DDR4 DIMMs on all configurations

Memory speed and timing also would affect the proper comparison between the two. For both platforms, they used (4x16GB kit) 64GB Corsair Vengeance RGB DDR4-3000. Its unrealistic anyone would use 64GB on a gaming/streaming/recording system. But AMD Threadripper and HEDT platforms had quad-channel support. There should have been two separate reports ideally- 16GB on the mainstream and 32GB on the quad-channel enabled platforms (8GB per stick configuration.

On the Intel platforms Core i9-9900K and, i9-9900X and i9-9980XE, it used 2,666MHz and for AMD Ryzen platforms it used 2933MHz. The timings were not mentioned. If the DCOP on the AMD platforms used terrible timings, that would be an issue. No information about its latency was given. The only information given is as follows:

Verify that D.O.C.P is selected for AMD-equivalent memory settings to XMP

Performance Enhancer, set to Default

Disabled overclocking enhancement

DRAM frequency set to DDR4-2933

Set Core Performance Boost to Auto

Set performance bias to None

Installed Ryzen Master utility

Asus Prime X470 Pro (Ryzen 7 2700X)

Load Optimized BIOS defaults

Verify that D.O.C.P is selected for AMD-equivalent memory settings to XMP

DRAM frequency set to DDR4-2933

Set performance bias to None

Installed Ryzen Master utility

Different CPU coolers for AMD and Intel platforms

PT: Cooler choice: We chose Noctua for the CPU coolers, due to having almost identical systems in the NH-U14S (Intel) and NH-U14S TR4-SP3 (AMD), which allowed us to maintain a comparable thermal profile. Because we were not performing any overclocking on any configuration, and because AMD has said it was a good cooler, we stuck with the stock AMD Ryzen 7 2700X Wraith Prism cooler.

The choice of the CPU coolers was questioned since Noctua NH-U14S CPU cooler was used on Intel Core i9-9900K. But it used AMD Wraith Prism CPU cooler for the Ryzen 2 2700X. No word about the CPU coolers used for Intel Extreme Edition CPUs and Threadripper 2. The NH-U14S does not support these CPU platforms. It is compatible with Ryzen 2 2700’s AM4+ with an additional socket kit. New kits include it by default.

The supportive argument was that Intel did not include a CPU cooler, while AMD did. This is true, but it could have used the NH-U14S on the AMD platform. While the benchmarks did not include overclocked performance (or overclocking potential), both CPUs had boost clock speeds. Therefore the clock speed will jump between base and boost clock. At the very least, the testing equipment should have been standard just like memory kits and its profile, graphics card, storage and operating system version.

Noctua does have an AMD Ryzen Threadripper-specific CPU cooler called NH-U14S TR4-SP3 because of Threadripper’s larger IHS. The mainstream CPU cooler version wouldn’t fit on it. But Threadripper CPUs do not have a cooler bundled with it. There is a Coolermaster TR4 Wraith CPU cooler but that is sold separately. AM4+’s CPU cooler naturally wouldn’t fit on the TR4. There’s no word on that.

1920 x 1080 Resolution

Resolution settings: One goal of this study was to test the CPUs and their graphics subsystems, not the GPUs, so we ran the tests at the most common gaming resolution (62.06%), 1920×1080, according to the Steam Hardware Survey. This allowed us to minimize any GPU-based bottlenecks on the rendering pipeline.

Principled Technologies justified the use of 1080p based on the Steam’s hardware survey. What it did not notice was that the GTX 1080 Ti wasn’t even the top 10 most used graphics card, it was on the 11th. When you scroll the entire list, the graphics card options above and below GTX 1080Ti would imply those users will be not be using 1080p. The 1440p resolution on number 14.

Principled TechnologieS shouldn’t have used 64GB- or 16GB. It makes sense to use 16GB for AMD Ryzen 2 2700X and Core i9-9900K since that standard has a 31.07% increase. It should have included Core i5/Core i7 since mostly were using GTX 1060, GTX 1050Ti GTX 1070, GTX 970 Ti and GTX 1080, who would likely use a mid-end/base model mainstream SKU. The Steam argument doesn’t exactly hold any weight. Most of the users wouldn’t pick up Core i9-9900K. Most gamers don’t livestream and record gameplay at the same time.

The GTX 1080Ti bottlenecking on the 1440p resolution? Even with gaming workloads over streaming and recording? Unlikely! The purpose of the report is to show CPU-bound performance in that situation and not the graphics card. The report should include an ideal resolution based on what kind of displays and resolutions such buyers will have.

Error on motherboard naming

Originally, we were the ones who pointed the mistype in the report and shared it with Bitwit and Pauls Hardware. The report did not highlight the actual motherboard used for AMD Ryzen 7 2700X and the Threadripper CPUs 2990wx and 2950x.

Restrictive embargos, cherrypicking PRs and pre-order

Embargos on the reviews are placed even when the pre-orders are taken and such information will be blindly used. We can say this for certain because regional marketing and sales managers cherry pick and display information in “Gamer meets” which aren’t live streamed. Nvidia did something similar with shady graphs and performance measure units. AMD RX Vega64 display in its press launch in Mumbai holds equal doubt when they had it next to a GTX 1070. We know a few who ‘reviewed’ it on-the-fly. But that did not work because nothing was mentioned- system settings is an important part. Their credibility is in the shithole, not mine! Usually, people will ignore even if companies use these numbers. Not here because of the amount of detail and a presence of a commissioned contractor. To be fair, Principled Technologies could have stayed quiet about the issue or not have its name not be on the reports. But they responded and said they will make the necessary changes. It did include all that settings which helped to find those inconsistencies. But it is the numbers what Intel is making such claim about Core i9-9900K’s performance.

Everyone is guilty somewhere somehow at some point throughout its existence. This practice is no different than AMD and Nvidia. It is unfortunate because it builds a level of distrust between the consumers and the manufacturer. They all can make good products. Its when they step a back somewhere or have no reasonable justification which creates a problem. It needs to stop creating issues unnecessarily since this is a community-driven ecosystem. Why cut off Core i7 9700K and Core i5-9600K from the livestream? You know everybody is going to talk about the lack of Hyper-Threading instruction set.

]]>https://www.hardwarebbq.com/principled-technologies-responds-to-intel-core-i9-and-ryzen-benchmark-inconsistencies/feed/040366Intel Core i9-9900K and i7-9700K are soldered, confirms Eurocomhttps://www.hardwarebbq.com/intel-core-i9-9900k-and-i7-9700k-are-soldered-confirms-eurocom/
https://www.hardwarebbq.com/intel-core-i9-9900k-and-i7-9700k-are-soldered-confirms-eurocom/#respondWed, 19 Sep 2018 06:37:23 +0000https://www.hardwarebbq.com/?p=39949 A Canadian based high-performance desktop and notebook manufacturer Eurocom has confirmed about Intel Core i9-9900K and Core i7-9700K having its IHS soldered. Soldered IHS, in comparison to thermal paste applied solution Intel is running with for many years since Ivy-Bridge, have a much better contact and therefore better heat dissipation to draw it out ...

A Canadian based high-performance desktop and notebook manufacturer Eurocom has confirmed about Intel Core i9-9900K and Core i7-9700K having its IHS soldered. Soldered IHS, in comparison to thermal paste applied solution Intel is running with for many years since Ivy-Bridge, have a much better contact and therefore better heat dissipation to draw it out from the core and spread it across its integrated heatspreader effective.

About thermal performance problems and delidding kits

Over the period of time, many enthusiasts have criticised Intel but nothing really came out of it. Eventually delidding such desktop processors to apply better cooling thermal pastes like Thermal Grizzly Conductnaut liquid metal (INDIA | US | UK), if not thermal pastes. Still, this ends up voiding the warranty of very expensive desktop processors but Intel’s pre-applied solution had major trade-offs such as bad heat transfer and limited TIM lifespan, as we have seen Intel not recommending overclocking for its 7th generation flagship Core i7-7700K. Eventually, Intel said it was going for a better thermal paste option for the 8th generation but that was still not good enough. Clearly, the fluxless soldered option was the only best option for mainstream enthusiast series CPUs.

As a result, delidding/resealing tools and liquid metal kits have grown popular. AMD Ryzen and Ryzen 2 are soldered, so this solution applied only for unlocked Intel desktop CPUs.

New Intel i9-9900K and i7-9700K CPUs are coming with gold soldered TIM/IHS to the CPU die. This should help manage the temperatures of the higher-clocked CPUs and will also help with achieving higher overclocked frequencies.

While there has been news of soldered IHS for the Core i9-9900K, the fate of the Core i7 and i5 was unclear. Now that there is some confirmation from an established high-performance system builder, Intel 9th generation is something to look forward to thanks to no-hassle heat dissipation standard. Let’s hope it applies to the Core i5 series as well!